Historic Granite Curling Club building in Saskatoon up for sale after 93 years

A piece of Saskatoon history, the Granite Curling Club building, is on the market.

The club opened its rink at 480 1st Avenue North on Dec. 20, 1929. But with declining membership and the steep cost of repairs, its doors closed for good, after 93 years.

Real estate agency Colliers is representing the sale as a tender — meaning buyers will put forward their offers all at once.

“The tender process is that everyone brings their offer in at the same time,” Keith Webb, the vice president of Colliers International, tells CTV News.

“The club will go through, decide which one they want to go with — not necessarily always the highest price, but who will do the best job or what they see for the future.”

Prospective buyers must submit their offers by 2 p.m. on March 31.

Webb says because of the property’s zoning, there’s a range of possibilities of what could takeover the Granite.

“I think you're going to see some people want to make it into retail space, other people may want to make it residential. It is zoned that it could be a warehouse, so there's lots of possibilities,” Webb says.

There is a possibility the new owner will tear down the existing building.

The Granite Curling Club building is not the same one that opened in 1929.

At that time, it was a wood frame building with seven sheets of ice, basement locker rooms, and a rotunda clubroom and lunch bar.

And until 1941, if you wanted to curl, you had to bring your own rocks, according to the city of Saskatoon archivist Jeff O’Brien.

The Nutana and the Granite curling rinks were the first to supply matching rocks west of Winnipeg.

“And originally it didn't have artificial ice. They didn't install the artificial ice plant until 1953. And that meant that curling was going to be very seasonal. You would have to depend on the weather to keep your ice sheets frozen if you wanted to curl,” O’Brien says.

In 1965, the building expanded to the one that exists now.

Before the Granite accepts offers, an open house is scheduled on March 2 for prospective buyers to see the space.

By mid-April a new owner of the Granite Curling Club will be selected.